*Disclosure*

Please assume I have received all books/ARCs I review from the author or publisher.

I do get books from other sources such as a bookstore or library but I rarely review those. But if I do I will be sure to state that.

All books/ARCs I receive for review are in exchange for an honest review whether that be negative or positive. Though, most reviews I post will be positive. Only because for a book I dislike I usually fail to make it through completly and because of that I have no thoughts to post fairly in a review.

I do not sell any books or ARCs that were provided to me through an author or publisher but I sometimes lend them out or trade them with fellow book bloggers.

Monday, January 18, 2010

If only boys were more like dogs.On a stormy night in St. Louis, Bailey Daley finds refuge in an after-hours diner. Bailey, a girl with three dogs in tow, wearing a soaking-wet prom dress, obviously has a story to tell. See, she wants what every girl wants from her boyfriend: enthusiasm, loyalty, and unconditional love. And Bailey is always falling in love—with boys, and with their dogs. And each of her dogs came from a relationship that didn’t quite work out. But don’t worry: in this fun, clean romance, true love is never far away—it just waits until you stop looking for it.

I went into My Boyfriends' Dogs thinking it would be a whole lot of fluff. I was pleasantly surprised to find characters that I could easily relate to and not just one fabulous story of teenage love but 3 intertwined ever so perfectly.

Because the stories took place throughout all of Bailey’s high school and they were told through her retelling them to strangers it was easy to see her development after each failed love; How she's grown from it and what's she learned, etcetera. We really got to know who Bailey was just as the 3 strangers at the diner were getting to know her too. And Bailey is the kind of character you can't help but love even if you don't love dogs. I hate to admit it but I'm really not a dog person-at all-but I still found myself thoroughly enjoying Bailey's story. And though her love for her pets was the center of the story--It's what gets her caught up in the 3 relationships and what also gets her out--Bailey's want for a perfect boyfriend (And the roadblocks that paved the way) was where the real story was.

The whole book made me smile. Not through all of it of course. There were some very very very sad parts too. Ones where I felt like crying and just wanted to reach through the pages and give Bailey a hug and tell her everything would work out. And there were parts that made me want to scream at the guy for making her feel that bad. But Bailey's personality shines through the pages making her easy to sympathize with and feel for.

The ending was very sweet and adorable and a tad bit predictable but that didn't make this novel any less enjoyable. Actually, I think the ending is one of the very things that made it so enjoyable. Everything I thought didn't make perfect sense throughout the book came together perfectly at the end.

This story immediately got me interested and kept my interest until the very end. It's a very "feel good" kind of book even if it is about 3 “not so happily ever after” kind of stories.

I don’t know what else to say about this novel except that it was fresh, fun, and lighthearted with a lovable main character who you can easily sympathize with as she stumbles her way through love.

With lovable characters and great personality, Mackall delivers a fresh story of finding out what it means to be in love versus being in lust, of realizing that sometimes what you see really is what you get, of finding out what you need versus what you want, and of realizing that dogs are the most loyal companions of all and sometimes you just need to run away in a soaking wet prom dress with them to realize that everything will work out in the end.